The Israeli army are still trying to enter Khan Younis ever since their military campaign on the southern city started on 1 December, 2023.
We are well into the first month of 2024 and Israeli soldiers are still trying to enter Gaza’s second largest city but with little success. They are being hammered by the Palestinian resistance movement on a daily basis despite their missiles and bombs with the help of Israeli warplanes striking homes and ambulances and their drivers.
There is a snagging feeling the Israeli soldiers are also being aided by British reconnaissance flights but with no apparent success.
Khan Younis must be seen as the resistance hub that is yet to be dominated and controlled. But this is not the north. Here, Izz Aldin Al Qassam and Saraya Al Quds fighters are moving full throttle ahead with their booby traps laid in circles outside the city to make sure the invaders don’t enter. These are proving death traps for the Israeli soldiers who are falling on daily basis together with their tanks, military convoys and bulldozers.
Battle of Khan Younis
Despite their daily clobbering, they are determined to dominate Khan Younis with the Israeli army increasing the brigades to around 30,000 soldiers but as yet this is not happening. Regardless of the low and ‘messaged’ numbers daily regurgitated by the Israeli army, one soldier blasts the Netanyahu government for being irresponsible and turning a blind eye to the number of deaths and the hostages that are still in Hamas captivity.
The soldier tells them on the social media to stop playing with the figures. He says Jewish parents already know the extent of deaths because they see their siblings coming home in draped coffins. He says 3000 Israeli soldiers have already been killed with over 10,000 injured. This is not to mention the thousands disabled by the war so far and are now no use for fighting.
The Israeli deaths in Khan Younis reflect the overall number of the soldiers being killed in the Gaza whether it’s in the north middle, east and to the south of the Strip. While the warplanes wreaked criminal havoc on the Palestinian population, Israeli soldiers have been getting as much as they are giving despite the fact the Israeli army point to mass deaths in the ranks of the Palestinian resistance movement, claiming they have killed 8000 of them since 7 October. But they also killed over 23,000 Palestinian civilians which they fail to mention.
And if the Israeli army are doing so well why haven’t they entered Khan Younis yet, a city of over 2000 people and a major commercial and intellectual hub. If the Israelis are on the periphery of the city, they should have entered its center by now. But they are being blocked. They are still to the east of the city, bogged down in towns like Bani Suhaila, Al Qarara and Absan. They are meeting stiff resistance there by Palestinian fighters in jeans and flip-flops facing a highly mechanized Israeli army.
Battering
But the Israeli army are getting a battering along with their heavy military hardware with tanks and machinery lost in their hundreds.
So if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps saying the war will go on for a few more months yet, a position repeated by his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, then he will continue to face the military music of more deaths and destruction.
But the military top brass are not convinced, agreeing with the politicians who say the war must go on whilst believing this is a new stage III of the war that focuses on the south and have been withdrawing some brigades especially from the northern parts of the strip to its outer part.
We are yet to see how will the shape of this war unfolds. But here as well, they maybe adhering to the American position which wants them to tone down the bloody conflict while opposing Hamas and hopping, maybe, it can be finished off.
Despite this the battle of Khan Younis rages on and a ceasefire is no where in sight.
Dr Marwan Asmar who has a PHD from UK’s Leeds University, is a frequent contributor on Middle East affairs
